Gamertell

The year is winding down, and you know what that means - it’s year-end list time! Here and now, we’re taking stock of the Wii’s most disappointing games. Now, we’re not going to just copy and paste a list of crappy shovelware from any retailer’s website - the titles on this list are games that we actually had expectations for, and for whatever reason, they just didn’t deliver.

Without further ado, it’s time to go down unhappy memory lane and take a look at the year’s crop of underachievers.

5. Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009
I actually had hopes for this game. It was an exercise game made with the consultation (and approval) of a kick-ass celebrity personal trainer (Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser), it was a Majesco (Cooking Mama) product, and I happen to be a gym junkie who actually likes working out. But the actual game was pure, ugly garbage, with bad controls and hideous, N64 quality graphics.

4. Wii Music
While I didn’t think this Nintendo flop was terrible, it certainly wasn’t the incredible, life-changing success that gamers had been waiting for since E3 2006. An awkward, screechy, music-making game that tried too hard to be all things to all people, most critics panned the experience, and it sold abysmally.

3. Animal Crossing: City Folk
Again, this is not a “bad” game by any means. But it does represent a massive missed opportunity. The title is barely an upgrade from the first two in the series (Animal Crossing on Gamecube - which started life as an N64 project - and Animal Crossing: Wild World on the DS), when it could have been a vibrant online community for Wii gamers. The anemic city and lame WiiSpeak features do little to disguise the fact that this is the same damn game all over again - and I say this as a huge AC fan.

2. Imagine Party Babyz
Ok, I know I said I wouldn’t include this kind of game on the list, but seriously, the fact that this exists is a huge disappointment to me. The entire Imagine line is an insult to girl gamers the world over who hate the “girly games” pandering.

1. Sonic Unleashed
Oh man. This title had enormous potential - pitched as a return to form for Sonic, with blazing fast gameplay and an overall design reminiscent of Sonic Adventure, everyone was excited for this game. Then it came out, and it immediately became apparent that while those Sonic levels were fantastic, a majority of the game featured terrible, badly designed brawling levels. It’s all the more heartbreaking for the inclusion of the better parts of the game - this title is the ultimate “coulda, shoulda, woulda”.

Read [Fidgit]